Tuesday, 12 February 2013

The Resources Are Already There.

We all
know that the world's wealth is very unfairly distributed, and that's
putting it mildly. However although most of us are aware of this
“unfair” distribution, it is difficult to grasp the extent. The
world's population is approximately 7 billion and at the bottom end
of this catastrophic unjust distribution of resources, vast swathes
of this population live in unimaginable deprivation. While at the top
end there is a small group of individuals with wealth that outstrips
that of some nations.

Let's look at the mass that struggle daily for survival and on
numerous occasions don't make it beyond childhood. Approximately
1,000 people die from hunger over hour, mostly children or young
people. Every 5 seconds a child dies from hunger related diseases,
more than 11 million children die each year from preventable health
issues such as, pneumonia, malaria, diarrhoea. In this rich and
varied world approximately 1.4 billion people in the developing
countries have to live on $1.25 a day or less, and it is estimated
that 22,000 children die every single day due to poverty.

At
the top end of this unjust greed driven system we have individuals
awash in wealth, wealth of unimaginable proportions. The world's GDP
is approximately $70 trillion, while 0.1% of the world's population
control $42 trillion and 0.001% control $14.6 trillion. There are
100,000 individuals with assets of $30 million or more and we have 11
million individuals with assets of $1 million or more. The top 20%
of the world's population control 82.8% of the world's wealth, while
the bottom 20% have less that 1%.

Not
by any stretch of the imagination could this be called an endorsement
for capitalism, on the contrary it is an indictment against the
system. What could you do with that $42 trillion controlled by that
1%? Well for starters it could pay off the entire debt of Greece,
Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal ten times over. It could fund 187
years of universal primary and secondary education. Or an even
greater achievement, it could fund the UN millennium goal for clean
water 1,400 times over. It could also fund 250 years of climate
change adaptation.

So
what does this tell us? It tells us that we have sufficient wealth
and resources to see to the needs of all the people of this world. It
is already there, we don't have to dream up where it will come from.
The real problem is just that it is in the hands of a very few
extremely greedy individuals, and it is the system of capitalism that
has brought this about and will perpetuate this unnecessary unjust
divide. To solve the problem of deprivation and early death from
preventable disease, capitalism has to go and a society based on
mutual aid, co-operation created in its place. It is not rocket
science, it is common humanity taking place of greed driven profit.